Hey, You Got Your Doodles On My Scrabble Tiles!

Pendants, pendants, pendants, ybonesy’s pendants in progress, photo and images © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.       Remember that television commercial from the 1970s where one boy’s walking along eating peanut butter out of a jar, and another boy walks around the corner eating a chocolate bar? They both spy a pretty girl [...]

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MN State Fair On-A-Stick (Princesses & Butter Queens)

Princess Kay Of The Milky Way, MN State Fair, St. Paul, Minnesota, August 2008, all photos © 2008-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.     The Minnesota State Fair kicks off this week and it’s time for our annual State Fair post on red Ravine. We’ve covered a lot of history in the past, so [...]

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sitting like (the moon over) kitchen mesa haiku

Moon over Kitchen Mesa, moon at dusk at Ghost Ranch, August 1, 2009, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved. silent Moon hovers dreaming of New Mexico she sits for us all off in the zendo friends dancing in the middle slow walk to the end irrational mind each day a new beginning Summer [...]

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American Rug Laundry — A Photographic Study

American Rug Laundry, Lake Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.   I’ve always wanted to photograph the American Rug Laundry building on Lake Street in Minneapolis. At the end of June, I had a chance to photograph the building before and after dining at a nearby Lake [...]

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Woodstock ’69 — Still Feelin’ The Love

Woodstock On Vinyl, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.     For last week’s 40th anniversary of Woodstock, I spent a few hours in the studio listening to a vintage copy of the original 3-set Woodstock album on vinyl. Then Liz and I met up with a fellow group [...]

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My Father’s Witness

  By Bob Chrisman     May 2, 2009 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of my father’s death. He died physically that day, but he had died to most everyone a long time before that. In March 1969 he punched the time clock as he left work. He felt a numbness speed through his left side. [...]

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Back-To-School Sales — A Writer’s Paradise

Tools Of The Trade (On Sale), Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.     Back-to-school sales are a bonus for writers. Liz came home last night with presents in tow: three full-sized college ruled notebooks for Writing Practice and five colorful 4 1/2 by 3 1/4 Composition notebooks with [...]

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Is Age Ten Too Young For A Cell Phone?

Dee got her first cell phone at age ten. A milestone year (and an indulged one), the birthday of her first decade brought a horse, pierced ears, and a flip phone. It was earlier than we had wanted, and I’m pretty sure she was among the first of ten-year-olds-we-knew to have a mobile phone. But [...]

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Gertrude Stein On Writing — Again Calls The Owl By Margaret Craven

Again Calls The Owl Sketch, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2009, photo © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.   Margaret Craven worked as a journalist and didn’t publish her first novel until her late 60′s (something I find strangely hopeful). Born in Helena, Montana in 1901, she grew up in Puget Sound, Washington of meager means, [...]

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For Chaco — Peace, Love & Purrs

Gone are the syringes, the pages and pages of charts we logged, the droppers, prescription foods, and red plastic “discarded needle” container with the skull and crossbones. Gone is the hook over the kitchen sink to hang the IV bag; it was made out of an old tent stake. Gone are the alcohol swipes, 15-cent [...]

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Food On-A-Stick (China Style)

Fried Giant Insects on-a-stick, tarantulas, scorpions on-a-stick, centipedes on-a-stick, and other amazing foods you can see (and eat) at the annual Beer Festival in Dalian, China, photo © 2009 by Gail W. All rights reserved.       The other day I was online late at night Asia-time when one of my best pals from [...]

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Mysteries & Myths: In Search Of The Lake Creature

Not A Velociraptor, Lake Creature spotted in Lake Harriet, Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 2009, by QuoinMonkey. All photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey and SkyWire7. All rights reserved.     Liz and I set out on my birthday to geocache around the Minneapolis chain of lakes. One of the joys of caching is the chance to learn [...]

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Burro On An Airplane

Fish Out of Water, pen and ink on graph paper, doodle © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved. Nothing like traveling to make a person feel like a fish out of water. It’s an unnatural act, moving among strangers in airports and on airplanes. I sat next to man for two hours from Albuquerque to [...]

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